On Thursday December 12th, the long-awaited Quiz and Chips Night arrived. Five of us Sixth Formers had organised everything ourselves, with one of our teachers volunteering as Quiz Master and a couple more to supervise on the night.
At times, it looked like we were never going to get there with the Quiz Night: we encountered a few problems along the way with certain elements of the organisation and had a few small disagreements as a team. However, this was the first time we had worked together as a team so this was to be expected, and we can now look back and say that it was all worth it!
We advertised the Quiz Night by putting posters up around our school, through social media such as Facebook and Twitter and by putting a small article in the local newspaper. Uptake was slow at first, to the point that one week before the event, we had only sold one ticket! However, we remained confident that people would turn up on the night, and so we kept at it. By the day of the Quiz we had a list of around 70 definites with many more showing interest, so we were happy to go ahead.
Starting at 19:00, we stayed behind after school had finished to set up the electronic equipment such as a DVD player (this was used in an Observation Round) and a microphone, and set out the tables and chairs, a front desk, an area to buy soft drinks from and an area on stage for marking. Once this was done, there was nothing else left but to put on our Camps International t-shirts, wait it out and see who turned up...
Soon, people started pouring in and I am proud to say that over 100 people turned up on the night. We had 8 rounds of 8 questions, plus a Picture Round for people to do whilst they were eating their food. We paused after 5 rounds for dinner, which consisted of either chips, sausage and chips, or cod and chips, chosen by people either in advance or on arrival. Due to one of our team working at a local fish and chip shop we were able to place the order early on and then have the food delivered at about 8:15 at a discounted price. During the break we also offered people the chance to play the well-known game Heads or Tails, where players pay £1 to enter and then predict which side a coin will land on; the last one left in after successfully predicting the outcome every time gets to keep half of the money raised from the game.
Finishing at about 21:15, the Quiz Night was a great success and we had lots of positive feedback from people. Although it had been hard organising it at times, it all turned out to be worthwhile and it is definitely something that we could consider doing again! It is safe to say that we all feel closer as a team because of it and feel confident that we could organise other similar events together. We charged £3 per person for entry without food, or £6 with.
Total takings on the night amounted to £600. Once the price for the fish and chips (£180) and the initial purchase of soft drinks (£20) was deducted, we had £400 profit which for our first event we were all really pleased with! Divided between 5 of us that left us with £80 each, which, although still leaves a long way to go, helps us just that little bit further towards our goal.
